Because of Joe McCarthy’s critics, we have been told time and again that guilt by association is a cardinal sin. But I contend it makes perfect sense to judge people by their friends, but also by their enemies. Who hasn’t said, upon meeting another person, “Any friend of so-and-so is a friend of mine”? And who doesn’t subscribe to the adage that the enemy of my enemy is my friend?

I only wish that more people had paid closer attention to Barack Obama’s circle of friends in Chicago before he got to move to Washington and form an even more vicious circle.

What brings this to mind is the unending vituperation directed at Sarah Palin. So far as I’m concerned, anyone who can give conniption fits to Jon Stewart, Chris Matthews, Ellis Henican, Keith Olbermann and David Letterman the way Alaska’s favorite daughter can is aces in my book.

One of the things that motivates their contempt for Mrs. Palin is her alleged lack of smarts. However, if she were as dumb as they claim, they wouldn’t have to shove words she never spoke in her mouth. After all, when it comes to leftists such as Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Alan Grayson, Henry Waxman, Charles Rangel and Barbara Boxer, we on the right merely have to quote them verbatim to make our case. I mean, I know Mrs. Palin didn’t attend an Ivy League school, but does any reasonably rational person actually believe that she doesn’t know the difference between North and South Korea?

For another thing, it does not require a 180 IQ to be president of the United States. I realize that liberals, who generally regard themselves as big brains, place undue emphasis on intellect. As a result, they have convinced themselves, against all evidence, that Jimmy Carter, Bill and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are positively brilliant, and that in their presence Albert Einstein would turn absolutely green with envy. But, as usual, they confuse egos with brains.

What an American president requires is noble character, an abundance of common sense and the sincere conviction that America, as created by our divinely inspired Founding Fathers, is, by any measure, the greatest nation ever conceived.

Having now read Sarah Palin’s “Going Rogue,” I am convinced that she is eminently qualified to be president. She probably won’t win any prizes for her book, no matter how many copies she sells. After all, unlike the darling of the left, she doesn’t boast about smoking pot in college, seeking out radicals and revolutionaries among the student body or Communists among the faculty.

Finally, there are three particular items in Palin’s resume that convince me that she possesses the right stuff to serve honorably in the Oval Office. One, she was never a lawyer. Two, in line with her principles – and proving that she has principles that aren’t a mere bagatelle she dusts off during elections – she never hesitated to give birth to Trig, her Down syndrome baby. And, three, unlike Carter, Gore, the Clintons, Barney Frank and the Obamas, she, like Abe Lincoln and Ronald Reagan, didn’t, I’ll remind you, attend an Ivy League school.